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Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and gentlemen
Ladies and gentlemen allow me before I begin my speech to welcome you today here in Doha in the opening of the 9th annual World Exchange Congress, which is widely recognized as the most prestigious and respected platform for the exchange community and financial markets because it is the largest global gathering that brings together CEOs, CTOs, and other senior executives from exchange and trading venues around the globe.
Amid the difficult and demanding events experienced by most global stock markets, we hope that this event will provide a forum where key executives in global exchanges and capital markets can educate, discuss and forge solid strategic relationships.
In addition to that, we aim to equip exchanges with the tools they need to make strategic decision in order to ensure growth and stability.
Again, it is our pleasure to receive you as our honorable guests here in Qatar. We are proud to host this event, in which we can share and discuss our mutual ambitions of achieving growth and progress. We hope that this conference will be an opportunity for all of us to see the positive results of the tireless efforts made by Qatar's stock market in order to reach an advanced level among the region's and the world's markets. These efforts resulted in many achievements despite the political and economic turmoil witnessed by the region.
Qatar Stock Exchange has achieved significant progress and made remarkable achievements at legislative and technical levels, infrastructure and systems, disclosure and governance practices, awareness-raising and spreading the culture of investment; and the diversification of investment tools and services provided to investors.
We are proud to say that in light of our strategic plan, Qatar Stock Exchange managed to bring about changes to its infrastructure, thus achieve the objective of transforming the Qatar Stock Exchange into a world-class exchange working in line with the world's best practices and enjoying advanced systems, laws and regulations to promote transparency and provide investors with proper and diversified investment tools. Qatar Stock Exchange had reached another major mile-stone in its drive to develop a world-class financial centre in Doha with the introduction of Scila surveillance system and the Universal Trading Platform (UTP) incorporating state-of-the-art technology.
The keenness to develop Qatar Stock Exchange is attributed to the fact that the stock market plays a pivotal role in achieving economic and financial development through developing listed companies in the one hand and providing public investors with investment opportunities on the other hand.
In order to achieve this objective, Qatar Stock Exchange has been characterized for its transparency and governance to ensure safe investments for all types of investors. Qatar Stock Exchange is also characterized as the perfect place to invest in different sectors as a result for having listed companies that belong to different sectors. These listed companies are not only the largest companies in Qatar, but they are also amongst the largest companies in the region.
Over the past few years, Qatar Stock Exchange has achieved significant growth since its inception. It is now a well-established national institution that offers various investment opportunities for local and international investors. Qatar Stock Exchange has become the link between listed companies and individual investors who realize that the stock market represents a saving and investment destination at the same time.
Based on this pivotal role, Qatar Stock Exchange has introduced various mechanisms to assist investors, including DvP, liquidity provision and DMA schemes. In addition, QE has introduced a number of new investment tools such as bonds and treasury bills, as well as assisting in licensing a number of banks as custodians, launching various new indices, creating QE’s Venture Market dedicated to SME’s, and allowing banks to perform financial service activities in the market.
With regard to attracting foreign investment, the Qatar Stock Exchange continued its quest to provide the best practices for attracting foreign investments to the domestic market. For example, we worked on:
- Improving liquidity and expanding the membership base and custodians
- Facilitating listing procedures and developing investment products
- Improving disclosure and transparency applications
The liquidity is very important factor in the financial markets because low liquidity will result in a negative impact on all investors, especially international ones. In this sense, the development of QSE's trading environment reflects the best international practices in order to provide investors with new investment opportunities backed by the existence of efficient and effective systems.
Moreover, the MSCI and S&P decisions to upgrade the Qatari market from a Frontier to Emerging Market status clearly and evidently reflect the recognition of the prominent international investment institutions of the positive steps made by Qatar Exchange over the past years, in terms of the development of the market infrastructure and the implementation of a number of important projects and initiatives, which were welcomed by the international financial and investment institutions.
It is to be noted that the upgrade of Qatar status reflects meeting the qualitative requirements for inclusion in Emerging markets, especially the degree of openness of the market to the international investment community and an established and well-tested operational framework.
These upgrades are a very positive step for the development of Qatar Stock Exchange and are likely to enhance the trustworthiness of the market and consequently attract foreign portfolios, estimated to worth 3 billion riyals.
The past years were full of major milestones. We are looking forward to achieve more in the future. Work results in further work; achievement calls for further achievement. We are fully inspired and hopeful to carry our delivery further with perseverance and persistence.
I would like to thank His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, for his patronage of this event. I would also like to thank the organizers and sponsors of this successful conference.
We welcome you again in Qatar and wish you a pleasant stay.
